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According to the Army Times and Military.com, the Army has finally selected a new camouflage pattern and I tend to think the name (Scorpion W2) has more to do with it’s selection than the actual pattern, since the pattern looks like Multicam with some minor differences, according to the Army Times;

Its color palette of muted greens, light beige and dark brown resembles MultiCam, the pattern used by soldiers deploying to Afghanistan. However, Scorpion W2 uses fewer beige and brown patches and none of the vertical twig and branch elements later added for MultiCam.

Sgt. Major of the Army Raymond Chandler III has been briefing senior sergeants major throughout the Army about the new pattern for the Army Combat Uniform, but details are still limited.

[…]

The Army has been considering replacing UCP with Crye Precision’s MultiCam — a pattern that has demonstrated consistent performance in multiple tests and was selected in 2010 for soldiers to wear in Afghanistan.

Army officials even tried to buy the rights to MultiCam but rejected Crye’s figure of $25 million, according to Caleb Crye, owner of Crye Precision. Army officials also balked at paying for “printing fees” the company receives on MultiCam — a small figure that amounts to about one percent of the 20 percent price hike uniform companies want to charge the Army for MultiCam, according to Crye.

This is right up there with the Shinseki beret. They probably spent more money on their selection process than they would have paying Crye their “printing fees”.

Comments (32)

So, I’m getting ready to come out of the IRR, and I have no idea what the uniforms are going to be. My old ACU’s are just about to graduate to ‘field uniform’ status, but I don’t want to drop several hundred dollars on new ones to have them go away. Is there anything finite on paper yet, besides SMA talking to people and articles in Army Times?

If there is money and jobs in it for congressional districts…not to be too cynical, but these pols grand stand and say “the right thing”…then do an about face when they start doing the math, and the mount of business that can be generated for constituents. The Army will get their way.

My guess is that most of that stuff is going to be manufactured in the third world; it makes no sense financially to locate a clothing factory here. That probably goes a long way towards explaining why Congress finally decided to stop this BS; for once it’s an issue where there aren’t any strong and entrenched interests with a lot of congressional backing at home trying to prevent efficiency and reason from reigning.

No way I see you wearing this new pattern from space. None. Unfortunately, when troops are massed and there are vehicles, heat from bodies and engines, maybe some smoke and all of the non-camo’ed equipment, I do see you. But, at close range, in a fight, if you’re behind cover and not shooting, I may not see you. Of course, that not shooting part may be a problem. So how about just avoiding the wearing of yellow, orange, and red? That will work.

And if they’d just gone with Multi-Cam in the first place, they’d be within the requirements of Congress because the uniform is already in the inventory. I’m sure more than a few of us still have our Multicams too.

Just like the Army spending 10 million to research a “new PT test” that got announced and then nixed by a few hundred comments on a discussion board. Now, from what I’ve seen, it looks like the Army is considering making a “crossfit” PT Test.

I’m going to take a stab that if its too similar, Crye Precision will start up a court battle over it as well just to make some more money based off their trademark. Then it’ll continue to cost money for Mother Army.

I had to turn in all my ACU stuff in exchange for Multicam this last deployment, and then get reissued ACU crap when I came back. In my closet I now have a set of OD fatigues, 4 different types of BDU, DCU, ACU and FRACU, Multicam and now apparently another pattern on the way. I’m running out of room :).

The real p!sser for me is the fact that we’ll also have multiple variants of the new uniform – just like we did before with the BDU(HW), BDU(T), and DCU.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
1. Bring back the old wash-n-wear OD “pickle suit” for garrison wear.
2. Come up with a woodland, desert, jungle, and arctic version of a field uniform. Make them base/post/camp/station CIF issue items.
3. Issue each troop 4 sets of field uniforms in the pattern appropriate for their home area when they draw their gear from CIF. Use those for training or deployment. Turn them in on departure.
4. DX the issued uniforms when deploying (or going on an exercise) to another region where the appropriate pattern isn’t the normal one issued at your home station, or if deploying as an individual replacement.

Problem of “musical uniforms” every few years solved, and $$$ billions saved. And, frankly, I don’t see why the solution wouldn’t work for at least the Army/USMC/Air Force (Navy shipboard fire protection requirements might require a variant for the Navy, but I think even that could be done cheaper than different uniforms for all.)

But that wouldn’t “look cool” or distinguish between the services at a glance, so it will never be implemented.

Hondo. Thank you! I loved the wash-n-wear pickle suit. Inexpensive and easy to maintain. Also a common camo pattern across the ground service branches you mentioned, makes sense, saves lots of money and well, I’ll say it again…it saves a LOT of taxpayer money.

Great. I can’t imagine what gay’d up “urban camo” crap the Navy will now have to procure to be cool like the Army. But now that we’re in no danger of war with Syria/Iran, or Russia, or anyone else our idiot politicians like to mess with, what better time to start dropping tens of millions of dollars on yet another new onslaught of uniform patterns.

I wore the BDU’s and DCU’s, but never got to rock the purple/blue whatever-the-hell. When so much of our drilling in the fleet concerned how to stay alive once fallen overboard, I could not wrap my mind around the concept of blending in with the water…lol.

When I was a young irresponsible SPC in AIT at Fort Sam, there was a rumor going around that the USN digi cammies were impregnated with some sort of florescent dye that would release upon immersion in seawater, to make the wearer more visible if he/she went overboard.

Long story short, we were able to disprove this via the vigorous application of two buckets of salt water onto a pair of unsuspecting squids. Good times.

Uniform changes, especially dress ones are pure bullshit. I was lucky that the Corps didn’t have a crap load of uniform changes.
When it comes down to it, The US could have won every conflict from Desert Storm on even if the ground troops wore all green utilities.

We had a great uniform at one time, the OG 107 Jungle Fatigues. It was a functional uniform that worked and looked good. After about 3 days in the field, they took on the color of whatever environment you were in. For that matter, BDUs worked.

So after all this the US Army soldier gets stuck with the second best camo?
The current administration is asking for multiple billions of dollars to spend on illegal aliens and the Army can’t spend a few million to pay to buy Multicam which has been proven in the Army’s own tests to be superior to Scorpion. Shame on you goverment.

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We are all military combat veterans and we write primarily from that perspective. Everyone who writes here has a Combat Infantry Badge, a Combat Medic Badge, a Combat Action Badge or a Combat Action Ribbon. We write about issues that matter to combat veterans..read more »